Stream the Flaming Lips' Slimy '2nd Cassette Demo' From 1983

Sonic snapshot catches psych-rock kingpins' nascent days

Way before the Flaming Lips incited The Terror, armed themselves with confetti cannons, and birthed a Yoshimi musical, they were a scuzzy, off-kilter punk crew from Oklahoma. Lips lovers can now revisit those early days with The Flaming Lips 2nd Cassette Demo, which has surfaced online (via Stereogum).

Originally recorded in 1983, the tape was remastered by current Flaming Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock, pressed to 7-inch blue vinyl, and sold by frontman Wayne Coyne as part of a recent record store tour designed to peddle weirdo merchandise. (See the reissue of 1984's The Flaming Lips 1st EP that came topped with a chocolate skull and other oddball treasures.)

Thanks to the Future Heart, fans can travel back 30 years to when the Flaming Lips still included Coyne's brother, Mark, and — as a press releases puts it — were in the middle of a "transition from its primitive shambolic drug-damaged punk-pop to the primitive shambolic drug-damaged hallucinogenic cosmic brother death rock heard on the 1st EP."

Stream Side A (featuring "The Flaming Lips Theme Song 1983" and "The Future is Gone") above, and stream Side B (featuring "Real Fast Words" and "Underground Pharmacist") below. "All We Have Is Now," you say, Wayner? Not quite.